The Lizard in the Cup

by Peter Dickinson

  “They would smuggle it?”

  “Buck’s helper is an artist, who produces white abstract shapes. I don’t think he’d have much trouble passing the matrix off as the same sort of thing, and these other bits as a new departure.”

  “And the monks know what he is doing?”

  “I think one of them does. I came to the service here yesterday, and he tried to prevent the other monk bringing me down this way. And I’ve a notion that some of the islanders know something’s up. I heard a rumour that the reason why no one except me came to the service was that they say something unlucky is happening in the monastery.”

  “It is likely. You can never guess what a Greek peasant knows. Who is Buck’s helper? What is his name?”

  Pibble hesitated. He didn’t want to complicate Butler’s task, but it would look pointed if he refused to answer.

  “Mark Hott,” he said. “Do you remember, the night before last, I told Buck that an artist had asked to meet him? That’s the man. In fact they’d already met, but they wanted an excuse to see each other more often. Buck came up here, on Thanassi’s instructions, before the rest of you arrived, and I think he must have found the mosaic then. They had to remove it before Thanassi saw it, but they couldn’t start till they got him safely cooped up at Porphyrocolpos. Buck wasn’t keen on my coming up here, that first morning, though he was keen enough on the notion of bumping Thanassi off. And Hott’s eyes are red with working on it all night. Oh, yes, and I saw some yellow sealing-wax in his studio.”

  “Sealing-wax?” said George. Pibble could almost feel the careful brain working it out, neither amazed nor angry. He got it right.

  “They shoot holes in the petrol tank in Mr. Hott’s studio, is that it? And then they plug them with the wax. And Buck chooses his time and starts a fire in the back of the boat to melt the wax. How?”

  “I think he’d have a flask of petrol hidden somewhere. He insisted on getting the boat out himself; I heard him being very angry with Alfred about it. And the beach-buggies are kept with the boats, and there’s a row of the cans there too. As soon as he was clear of the shore he’d pour his flask over Thanassi’s robe and throw it back into the corner by the tank. Then all he’s got to do is toss a cigarette back there at the right moment.”

  “Too clever.”

  “Yes, not a professional job. But it worked, except that he didn’t expect the boat to sink.”

  “Why did he bother?” said George. “Thanassi was inside the fence anyway.”

  “Yes, but only for a couple of days. I remember he sounded put out when I said it needn’t be longer than that. He managed to have the telegram sent from Boston somehow, as a stop-gap measure …”

  “Easy, if he knows someone there,” said George. “Only a telephone call.”

  “It can be traced.”

  “Not so easy. We are always telephoning all over the world.”

  “I suppose we’re too late to stop the bodyguards coming,” said Pibble.

  George shrugged, as though so small an expense didn’t matter. “They are late already,” he said. “They probably will not come, or come to the wrong island. So now Thanassi is free, huh?”

  “I think so. We’re reasonably sure that there are no professional assassins on the island. We can account for the shooting. I should think Buck or Hott arranged to have that telegram sent from Boston. I think you probably heard about the man who came from London looking for a Mafia drug-factory—that’s all part of another problem, though I still don’t know why anyone should have rung up from Porphyrocolpos to get him thrown out.”

  “That was I,” said George, matter-of-factly, after a slight pause.

  “Oh. Why?”

  “I thought he had come to look for Tony. Do not tell Thanassi.”

  Pibble blinked. So now George, and presumably the other courtiers, knew that he knew who Tony was, and didn’t mind declaring their knowledge. They had assumed that he too was now drawn into their network of personal loyalty, overriding all other loyalties.

  “OK,” he said, half accepting the role. “That tidies pretty well everything up. There was simply too much going on.”

  “It is like that, round Thanassi.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “What do we do now?” “Put the screen back, then go and persuade Buck to tell Thanassi what he’s been up to.”

  But as they walked up the sloping paving they saw a light which should not have been there glowing yellow and erratic under the arch. George switched his torch off. Damn, thought Pibble—it depends which one it is. Then Father Polydore staggered out, lantern held high, and peered up and down the corridor. The only hope was that his mazed old eyes wouldn’t spot them. They did.

  “Kleftes!” cried Father Polydore, tottering towards them and shrilling comminations. Pibble saw George switch the gun to his left hand while he crossed himself with his right. But all the while the barrel pointed steadily at the old monk’s heart. Either Father Polydore didn’t notice it or he was too enraged for fear.

  “Try telling him I’m a policeman,” said Pibble. “He’s the innocent one, I think.”

  George put the pistol in his pocket, waited for a gap between curses and then spoke firmly to the old man. Father Polydore blinked and, still mumbling the wrath of Heaven down, raised his lantern to peer at the intruders.

  “Anglikos?” he said with sudden pleasure. “Kalos orisate, kirie.”

  “Kalos sas vrikame, pater,” said Pibble.

  Father Polydore clawed Pibble by the sleeve and dragged him back to the chapel, pouring out plaintive incomprehensibilities. It took some time for George, despite the infrangible glossy patience of the trained hotelier, to calm him. Together they moved the false apse back into position and waited while Father Polydore said the morning office. He seemed perfectly content now that the mocking caricature covered the austere riches of the mosaic. As Nancy had said, a picture, any picture, was good enough for faith—perhaps the worse the better. Great art might actually impede belief, focussing the mind on itself, where characterless cliché was, as it were, transparent. In that case Nancy and Father Polydore were performing a truer service to the buyers of their slick production line than if they had been painting icons of any real merit.

  “We must go back,” whispered George behind the droning syllables. Pibble was sure that Father Polydore was saying the office twice, or had somehow switched to a prayer near the beginning and was following the whole thing through again; but he shook his head.

  “We can’t. We’ve got to talk to Father Chrysostom, the one who’s in it—though he’ll have arranged things so that no one can prove he is. If Father Polydore tells him we’ve been here, the whole show might get out of control. He might even try to do away with the old boy.”

  “It is no concern of ours. Probably the mosaic belongs to the monks, and they are perfectly entitled to sell it. It is only being removed in secret because of a disagreement between them.”

  “You may be right. But I bet they haven’t got a licence to export it, and if Athens learns that one of Thanassi’s friends has been in on that there’ll be trouble. And Thanassi wants this place for a hotel, too. How do you think he’d …”

  For the first time Pibble saw a real emotion in George’s dark eyes, and it was fury. But it went as quickly as it had come.

  “OK, but there is much to do,” he said.

  Father Polydore turned from the altar with that look of abstract serenity which is the property of the almost senile. George crossed himself. The lantern was extinguished and returned to its niche and they went up the corridor by torchlight until the hole in the roof made it unnecessary. Pibble, despite his insistence on seeing this artificial mystery through, was in an almost frivolous mood, the burden of other people’s sins had slipped from his shoulders, and he felt pleased with himself. Pleased at having sorted the problem out, and ev
en pleased by such trivia as his having understood Father Polydore’s first shout of “Kleftes!” Thieves! In the Collins phrasebook the word came in a single sentence with “Help!” and “Fire!” under the heading “General Difficulties.” Pibble sometimes had wondered why the word for “Rape!” had been omitted from the catalogue of tourist calamity, especially as the book had been printed before the chaste rule of the Colonels began.

  And now, as he helped Father Polydore down the erratic stairs to the refectory, he wondered whether the old man had already forgotten the whole drama of the missing mosaic. If you are

  (a) superstitious

  (b) on the verge of senility

  (c) riddled with ouzo

  (d) a bit simple-minded anyway

  then there must be multiple opportunities for the confusion of fact and fantasy. It would be difficult for even the most rigorous philosopher to build a theory of knowledge on your perceptions, in which dream and belief and fact and oblivion ceaselessly shaded and faded into each other, so that the fake mosaic could become the real one, with a corner missing, and then shift back into the fake one without your having to postulate two separate phenomena to account for the diverse appearances. It was wasted speculation; Father Polydore took a deep breath at the door of the Refectory, squared his frail shoulders and lurched into the room bawling that the monastery had been robbed.

  Father Chrysostom was there, but so were Tony and Nancy. At the sight of the girls responsibility leapt back and squatted on Pibble’s neck. George the impassive was also perceptibly shaken; no doubt he could accept a monk who robbed his own monastery, but was shocked to see him consorting with women. Tony wore her wig, but perfunctorily so that it was obviously a wig, with the long coils tucked inside her shirt She was no less the warrior queen as she stared half-sideways at George advancing smiling to greet her. Nancy was at her easel, grey and sweating, but before he could greet her Pibble found himself clutched again by the sleeve and pulled to where Father Chrysostom now stood frowning at the High Table.

  Dialogue ensued, ardent but meaningless.

  “Then sas katalaveno,” said Pibble, several times. Neither monk believed him. An Englishman who can intrude into holy places, desecrating shrines, should at least be able to defend his actions in the language of the country.

  “George!” called Pibble, also several times. “George!”

  At length he had to shake himself free of Father Polydore to fetch his unwilling interpreter. George was arguing with Tony, low-voiced but intense. In the few steps that it took Pibble to cross the room he saw something which his own unlikely longings had made him blind to. It was obvious in tone and stance, in gesture and expression. George, too, was besotted. Pibble, now almost cured, was so overwhelmed with sympathy that he hesitated before waking his friend from the impossible dream.

  “George,” he said. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  With an effort George retracted his emotions into their carapace.

  “For God’s sake come and sort this out,” said Pibble. “Tell them we know who’s been taking the thing, and that we’ll make them put it back. Ask Father Chrysostom if he wants us to call the police in—he’ll say not yet. Don’t let on that we think he’s in it.”

  George flickered a smile at Tony and moved up the room to where Father Chrysostom was already fetching the bottle, glasses and sponge-sealed pitcher out of his cupboard. With a shock Pibble remembered that Nancy nearly certainly knew what had been going on; cautiously he turned to see how she’d reacted. She seemed not even to have heard. As he watched her she lifted her brush from the wood, waited while a long shudder shook the whole curve of her back, and then returned to the blue draperies of the Virgin.

  “She’s not so good today,” said Tony, low-voiced at his shoulder. “I brought her down this early to work. Work cures all, my Poppa used to say.”

  “Come and look at the view,” said Pibble.

  They leaned out over the sill, with the pillar between them. The early morning sun lit the man-made cliffs opposite, but still shone at too low an angle to reach the water, which lay calm and green-purple beneath them. In this light it was easy to see the whole of the monks’ submarine midden. It appeared to be composed almost exclusively of bottles.

  “It’s morphine she’s been on?” said Pibble. But Tony shook her head.

  “Just grass. Hash.”

  “But …”

  “Yeah. I know. You wouldn’t think it could do that to somebody. But Nan’s so small, and she’s got personality problems. A great big balanced bear like Mark can smoke as much as he likes, and he’ll be OK. But that kind never figure there’s anyone different to them—kids with no resistance in them, body or spirit. They think they’re being just friendly, but they can do a hell of a lot of harm.”

  “I thought …”

  “What she’s got now is plain hangover,” said Tony. “So’ve I. We drank a bottle of ouzo last night. Say, that’s foul stuff.”

  Pibble sighed. It was no business of his if Nancy had lied to Tony, and Tony, lost in love, chose to disbelieve plain evidence.

  “Look,” he said slowly. “There’s trouble coming. A lot of people, including Nan, are going to be questioned by the local police. Unless she’s behaving in a fairly rational way, she’s bound to be spotted. The people in Athens are very tough on any kind of drug-taking, so I think you ought to try and get her out of Greece in the next week or so.”

  She gave him one of her solemn, intense stares.

  “Thanks,” she said. “You’ll tell Mark?”

  “No, I don’t think so. If they learn that the word’s been passed round, there’ll be real trouble. They might even try and come after you. I think Mark can take care of himself.”

  “I guess so,” she said. “He’s a tough bastard. Also, he treated Nan wrong. Yeah, I’ll let it happen.”

  In the long pause Pibble found himself wondering how this terrifying girl could have so subdued her personality to attract his timid, elderly lusts. He wondered too whether Thanatos preferred her armed or submissive. She seemed to divine his thought.

  “How’s my old swine?” she said, withdrawing herself into the room.

  “He’s not so good, either,” said Pibble, following. “He took it very hard. I think you must have meant more to him than just another beautiful girl.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The shrug of her shoulders was not dismissive. It implied affection and sympathy for the old swine. And farewell, and a deliberate putting-out-of-mind.

  “Better not tell him you’ve seen me,” she said.

  “But George …”

  Tony made a slight face, glanced at the suave back of George cajoling and blackmailing Father Chrysostom, and shook her head.

  “What are you going to do?” said Pibble. “I mean, after you’ve got Nancy through.”

  “Go home. Start work.”

  “With her?”

  “Yeah. She’s interested. She’s lived her life in places where nothing happens.”

  “Won’t you have trouble getting her in? And yourself?”

  “Up from Mexico. I’ve got trouble, I know. I am trouble. Both sides will want to see me in the big trial scene. Have you noticed how liberation movements are getting less mileage out of their martyrs? So what do they do? They find a very American solution—they throw in more martyrs … You don’t like it?”

  “I like you. But I can’t imagine a situation in which your kind of random violence is morally justified. I’m sorry. I’ll have to let them know you’re coming. And Nancy.”

  “You would, too. I’ll tell you something about your kind— you think you’ve got a monopoly of duty. When we die, when we are tortured, when we stick out life-sentences in the pen—that’s not duty?”

  She spoke seriously, without contempt, her voice gentle and low—an excellent thing in woman. But Pibble fel
t as though he had been scythed down by her bladed wheels.

  “You’ll still go, even if they know you’re coming?” he said.

  “Uh-huh. But I’ll tell you another thing. Violence was last year’s scene.”

  “What will this year’s be?”

  “I don’t know. We all keep saying we’ve got to show that we can build, but I reckon Middle America will like that even less than the bombs. Maybe they’ll let us show that we can suffer.”

  “Nancy too?”

  “If she wants it. She. . . you know something? She was reared in a home, but she knew who her father was. He was a writer. He didn’t even know she existed. She only saw him once, in a bookstore, where he was signing his books …”

  “Nancy told me he was in the Resistance.”

  “Yeah—Yugoslavia. Then he settled down to be a sex ‘n’ violence man. She went to this bookstore to look at him, and she bought one of the books. She showed it to me, and guess what. She’s been through every line of that book with a brush and indian ink. Now the only words you can read are the signature. And she keeps it by her bed—like that.”

  “Poor girl. Yes. I see. Did you tell Thanassi you were leaving him?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And for whom?”

  “Love that grammar. Of course, I spelled it out.”

  “I wonder if he understood,” said Pibble, wondering if he did, either.

  “Ask him.”

  Even in that near-whisper Tony could make reproof wince. She was going to say something more, but broke off to run to Nancy, who now stood swaying at her workbench. Tony laced her arm round her waist, led her to the window and helped her to lean far out, stroking her shoulder-blades between the retchings. When Pibble turned back to the room, squeamish and weary, he saw that the art-fraud conference was breaking up amid expressions of mutual distrust and esteem. George drained the last of his ouzo and extracted a perfunctory blessing from Father Chrysostom before coming impatiently down the room. Seeing what the girls were doing he stood and fidgeted.

  “All fixed?” said Pibble.

  “OK. The mosaic will be restored. Then Athens will be told of its existence. Thanassi will make a donation to ensure its proper upkeep. If the criminals make restitution the police need not be informed.”